A few weeks ago I happened by my local yarn store in Charleston, Knit.
Sometimes there is yarn there that gives me happy tingles when I pick it up. This turned out to be one of those times. There was a massive new shipment of Malabrigo Rasta, so pretty I wanted to eat it. It was pricey, but the colors were SO BEAUTIFUL! Even though I am not at all a fan of super bulky yarns (lace and sock weight yarns are more my style), the colors were stunning, so I took a skein home just so I could play with it (and maybe drool on it a little too).
As soon as I had wound it into a ball, I discovered how Rasta acquired its name: it does tend to kink and worm a bit. It gave me the idea to make a scarf with dreadlocks. These scarves are incredibly fast and easy to make.
For the one on the left, cast 8 stitches onto size 17 needles, and knit every row (garter stitch) until there are about 18 inches of yarn left. Drop the first two stitches, bind off the middle four stitches, and drop the last two stitches as well. Carefully unravel the two edge stitches and gently twist into dreads. The scarf on the right was made exactly the same way, except the scarf was knit in stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row). This causes the scarf to gently roll up a bit so that all of the dreads end up on the same edge.
As cute and promising as these scarves were, I was really looking for something a bit more practical. I played with a scarf pattern in Herringbone stitch (HERE). This stitch really makes the most of the pretty texture and short color changes of Rasta, but the scarf was too thick and firm for my tastes, even though I used #17 needles.
Bulk and firmness are not particularly good qualities in a scarf, but they are great qualities for warming up cold ears- yes, a hat!! (top photo) Success! And of course I had to top it off with dreads!
I promise to post the hat pattern in my next blog entry!
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